Screaming Stone
by honmyo SeaGull
Summary: Dokugakuji talks, somebody listens, Kougaiji interrupts.


**Disclaimer : Not mine. Just playing.**

Summary: Doku talks – Somebody listens – Kougaiji interrupts.

**_« Screaming stone _»**

He _knows_ she is beautiful. He has heard it numerous times.

Not that he can _see _itDokugakuji can hardly make out her face in this darkness that surrounds her like a heavy curtain, but he is all ready to believe. What matters isn't the truth in the words, but whose lips these words flow from. In fact, he had always wished he could share the awe's feeling of the one who can see her the way she was once upon a time.

So, in spite of him, he has looked at her a lot. Searching something in the ghost of her hieratic features that he still can't grasp… Countless days before, he has. Most of the times, he hadn't been alone. And in the man by the side of whom he was standing, she had a worshipper much more enthralled than he was and ever would be. Where? Where was it? That thing that generated this almost religious feeling of devotion from his prince?

But today, Dokugakuji is the only one whose deep breath can be heard in the vast room, and it's not even enough to make the still _jufus_ shiver on their high ropes (like they sometimes did in the presence of his prince's burning hopes).

And it is the first time he talks to the woman as well.

His voice echoes too loudly in the sanctuary. His words hold the bittersweet taste of sacrilege. He is bordering upon treason against his prince, and he knows it. But he can't help it. It's been too long. It hurts too much to look at her ( or at him, or at him looking at her, or…).

« I hate you, » he says. Very quietly. Not really angry. Matter of factly.

And it is true. He hates her.

It's rather blunt. This isn't usually the kind of things you would say to a lady – a queen, and above all not when it is the real first time you address her. You would think Dokugakuji isn't the one for formality. Actually, he wouldn't care less about it: it's a thing Kougaiji never held against him.

Of course, the woman doesn't react. After all, she is only a fairy tale from a past time, old beyond imagination, a memory carved in stone. And sometimes, waking in the dead of the night at the sound of his prince talking to her in his slumber, the swordsman is even afraid she might be just a lie (or whatever else) that Kougaiji will never be able to reach ever again.

The _youkai_ called Dokugakuji doesn't fear to hurt the woman's feelings. Stone is dumb and deaf and nothing more.

And even if it wasn't ? What would it change ? Dokugakuji would almost wish she would be able to hear, if it meant not to be spitting his pain in vain. Almost.

He talks again, through his gritted teeth.

« He is doing this for you. He is suffering for you. He allows himself to be manipulated, tainted, and hurt because of you. »

Kougaiji had never seemed to notice, any time he had tried to explain him where exactly his loyalty lay. The prince always failed to understand that this still stone figure didn't matter to a _body_guard. This soulless face was the enemy, as much as Gyokumen, as much as Nî. Different causes. Same effects.

The stone gaze on him doesn't blink. It's just a dead mask. Dokugakuji is just imagining the taunting glint in the empty eyes, he knows.

« I'm not jealous, » he feels the need to point. Because this is not only that. But his voice wavers slightly as if he wasn't sure himself to be totally sincere, here. He averts his eyes. A split second. No more. Already, they are back on her face.

More than once, he had wondered whether he would be able to shatter her with one blow of the sword his prince gave him. As if answering his thoughts, the bewitched blade is inexplicably in his hand, its dead weight at the edge of his arm tempting him badly towards destructive motion. Would it be enough to save Kougaiji ? Enough to break the prince's chains ? Was it worth to bring upon himself his only master's wrath ?

« Give me a single reason not to… » he orders the stone prisoner, already raising the saber. It's not like it would be the first time he would raise a hand against a woman.

« Doku ? »

The swordsman represses a start. With the odd reverberation of sound on the old stones, he would almost have believed it was the statue which had talked. But the call comes from behind. The sword falls down against his leg, placid, almost hidden by the white fabric of his clothes.

« Kou. » The name sounds like a sigh. Maybe of relief, may be not. « I'm here, » he concedes.

The swordsman hears the quiet footsteps, feels the presence that suddenly seems to materialize near him.

« Who were you talking to ? »

There is an hint of curiosity in the prince's tone. Dokugakuji is alone, indeed, in the chamber. Unless you considered the still figure hovering in the stone pillar… In Kougaiji's eyes, a flash of understanding appears. Coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with his liege, he lets his violet eyes ascend the stone column and enfold the expressionless face in his warm gaze.

« I see. »

No, you don't, Dokugakuji thinks but says nothing. You don't, because if you really had heard me, I would be dead already.

When Kougaiji speaks again, there is a ghost of mockery in his voice.

« Sometimes, I had been thinking you didn't believe me any time I told you she has been alive. »

It doesn't last, though. The prince tightens his fists. Dokukakuji tries not to look at these hands, but at the proud profile that betrays nothing.

« _Is _alive, » Kougaiji amends with shame burning his tongue while he watches the beloved stone face so alike his own.

It occurs to the prince, out of sudden. He never did it with the forms. A quick look at the swordsman to catch Doku's attention for a minute, a long-clawed hand falling and holding tight the broad shoulder, and then turning again towards his mother :

« _Haha me_. Here is Dokugakuji. He is… »

And Doku really would like to know what he is. He had always had the feeling only Kougaiji could tell him. But words die on the prince's lips in spite of the intent pray he now can read on his liege's face. Or because of it. For once, the lady in the stone remains forgotten for a while.

There's is a slight change in Kougaiji's features. It is slow. And sad. But it is indeed a smile. And every single one of Kougaiji's deserves to be cherished.

So Dokugakuji doesn't ask what he is.

The prince's hand leaves his shoulder, and after a respectful nod addressed to his mother, the _youkai_ leaves the room. Of course, his liege follows him, not without darting a last look towards Rasetsunyo.

She can't even scream her pain.

Stone is not deaf but really voiceless.

The confined queen listens to the departing steps, and lets darkness and silence engulf her like any time the light of her flesh, the flame of her soul – her son, leaves her all alone in here and pondering on her existence or absence of existence, the rope of her sanity feeling like blown by the winds of madness or unreality as soon as he is far…

Today, the light in her mind will glitter a bit longer, fueled by a jealousy that is eating her alive — and maybe keeping her alive as well, who knows? — until the ashy gray of unconsciousness swallows her again until her son's return.

Kougaiji had no need to talk, to tell her. She knew already. What the swordman was. He was the one who was always by his side. Who she longed to be again.

I hate you, too, she would have answered the swordsman, had she been able to do so. It was true.

Even if that tall _youkai_ was the only one she trusted to make sure her son would always come back to her alive.


End file.
